


Drier Eyes

by hazel_3017



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Non-Linear Narrative, SO SO SAD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel_3017/pseuds/hazel_3017
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Isabella Latta</em>, it says on the medical certificate. Right next to, <em>stillborn</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drier Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This work is a piece of fiction.
> 
> Originally written for a prompt on [tumblr](http://hazel3017.tumblr.com/).

Tom has Isabella picked out from the start. He never mentions any boy names, so certain the life growing inside of Mike will turn out to be a girl.

Mike always rolls his eyes at him. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he’ll say, because they want the sex to be a surprise and Mike knows his name is actually the male version of Michaela—his mother claims the doctor had been so sure he’d be a girl they’d already bought a bunch of baby dresses and painted the nursery pink.

Privately though, Mike thinks Tom might be right, has already taken to refer to his large baby bump as Bella in his mind. He doesn’t tell Tom, though. He’s already bought a ‘daddy’s little girl’ onesie and he is smug enough as it is.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. The onesie is never worn.

*

 _Isabella Latta_ , it says on the medical certificate. Right next to,  _stillborn_.

*

There’s a funeral. They put Bella’s body in a coffin, the smallest Mike has ever seen. It’s so very small; Mike hadn’t even realised they made coffins in that size. It doesn’t seem natural.

His mom and dad are there, Tom and his parents, some of the guys from the team. They’re all crying or teary-eyed, breaths shaky on the exhale as they lower the tiny coffin into the ground, buried beneath shovels and shovels of cold, dark dirt.

Mike closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see it. He listens to the priest say, “—another angel in heaven—”

His eyes are dry.

*

There was no indicator that something was wrong when he went into labour. Tom is almost besides himself in excitement, running around the house to gather everything for the hospital stay as Mike times the contractions.    

“You ready, babe?” Tom asks when he’s finally found the car keys, shouldering the overnight bag before leaning over to give Mike a quick kiss. “We’re having a baby!”

Mike laughs, breathing a little easier between contractions. “We’re having a baby,” he agrees.

*

Mike accepts all the condolences with a bland smile and feels like screaming from the hundreds of apologies he’s offered, all the little  _I’m sorry_ ’s blurring into the same generic sentiment.

 _I’m sorry for your loss_.  

Mike wants to scream at them, wants to tear into them, to demand,  _What are you sorry for? I haven’t lost anything. I haven’t—_

In the end, he hadn’t even gotten a single day with his child.

He wonders if you can lose something you never had.

*

Mike spends four hours in labour giving birth to his daughter. He never gets to hear her cry.

*

Tom asks if they shouldn’t pack away all of her stuff. To dismantle the crib and repaint the room. There are little cartoon bunnies on the walls. “We can probably donate it, right? Give it to someone who—”

Mike looks at him. “Give it to someone who, what?”

“Someone who needs it,” Tom says cautiously. His eyes are red-rimmed. They're always red-rimmed these days.

Only Mike’s eyes are dry.

“We can’t just give it away. It’s  _hers,_ its—”

“It’s not like she’s going to need it, Mike! Okay? She’s gone. She’s gone and we have to deal with that.”

He crosses the room, crouching to the floor in front of the rocking chair Mike had bought from an antique shop.

_Look! Isn’t it gorgeous? It’ll fit perfect in the nursery—_

“I know you’re hurting,” Tom says. "More than anything has hurt before." He reaches out, carefully putting his hands on Mike's knees. All his touches are careful now. “I am too. But she’s gone, babe. We’re never gonna get her back.”

Mike breathes in sharply. The hurt is so raw, so new. He’s never known that anything could hurt this bad, so all-encompassing that it’s a physical hurt, like an injury that just won’t go away.

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Tom asks gently. So, so gently.

Mike swallows. He says, “That we’ll pack everything away and there will be nothing left of her. As if she—”  _never existed._

Had she? His little girl, his perfect, beautiful little girl; she hadn’t even gotten a single day in this world.

“She was here,” Tom says fiercely. He grips onto Mike’s hand. “She was born and we got to hold her in our arms, Mike. She was  _here_.”

“It’s not fair,” Mike whispers. “I don’t understand, I did everything  _right_. I—”

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until Tom is pulling him out of the rocking chair and into his arms, holding him tight as he says over and over again, “It wasn’t your fault, babe. No one is blaming you. It wasn’t your fault.”

Mike hasn’t cried since the hospital, since right after he gave birth and for the longest time no one would answer,  _Why isn’t she crying? Is my baby okay? Why isn’t she crying?_

He’d thought he was all out of tears to cry.

*

The doctors tell them there was never a specific cause, no single reason why her heart had stopped beating, only that it had.

There was never anything anyone could have done. She’d been dead for days before Mike gave birth.

Sometimes, these things just happened, they said.

_We don’t know why._

The worst part, the part that Mike can’t forgive himself for, is that she had been dead for days inside of him, and he hadn’t known.

He hadn’t noticed something was wrong. That’s on him.

_*_

Tom goes back to work long before Mike. He doesn’t have months of conditioning to catch up on or weight to lose.

“I don’t have to,” Tom says, standing in the doorway and looking at Mike for the slightest reason to stay behind. “I can just tell Trotz we’re not ready. He’ll understand.”

Mike shakes his head. He kisses Tom, and surprises himself by how deep and slow it gets. They haven’t really touched like this in a while.

“Go. I’ll be fine. Kick some Penguin ass, okay? You know how happy Ovi gets when he beats Malkin and Crosby.”

Tom still looks uncertain, but he allows Mike to usher him out the door, promising to be only a phone call away if Mike needs anything.

“I mean it,” he says sternly. “Call if you need anything, okay? Even if it’s just to talk.”

Mike nods. “I will.”

He doesn’t expect to, but three hours later a stray thought has him freezing in place on his way to the kitchen and he can’t breathe for the hurt of the loss. It’s a sudden, though not unfamiliar sensation, and it hurts and hurts and hurts.

“Just breathe, baby,” Tom says when he calls him. “Just breathe with me, just like that.” He inhales loudly over the phone, slow and exaggerated. “There we go, in and out. That’s better, you’re doing fine. You’re okay. You’re just fine.”

Mike breathes in and breathes out and is startled to find that’s true.

_*_

A nurse asks him, soft and hesitant, “Did you have a name picked out? For the official records,” and Mike stares down at the little baby in his arms. She’s so still and she looks so peaceful. She could be sleeping if she wasn’t—

She looks like she’s sleeping. But her chest isn’t moving, isn’t heaving with small puffs of air.

She’s beautiful, all the same. Beautiful and perfect, and she’s his little girl.

“Bella,” he says. “Isabella Latta.”


End file.
